Demons
by returntothedarklands
Summary: Set after 5x19. Can Owen overcome his demons and win back Cristina or will his PTSD prove to be more than he can handle? Read to find out. R/R? C/O, rated T for safety and any future chapters that may feature some violence. *NOW COMPLETE*
1. Prologue aka Rerun

**A/N: This is my first grey's fic so let me know what you think. The prologue is quite short but I promise the chapters will get longer after this. I had to lay the groundwork for the rest of the story in this chapter. Set after 5x19.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or any of the characters in this fic that appear on the show *sigh***

Prologue

Cristina was sobbing quietly into a cushion when Callie arrived home from a double shift and for a second she thought that she must have been dreaming because Cristina Yang was crying, and Cristina Yang never cried. _Cristina Yang made other people cry. _But Callie wasn't dreaming and Cristina really was sitting hunched up on their sofa, her knees drawn into her chest as she emitted infrequent noises from behind the red cushion. For a moment, Callie simply stood by the door, stunned into freezing at the other worldly sight.

"What's up with you?" She asked after a moment.

It wasn't like she was best friends with Cristina or anything, but Yang was her roommate and colleague and after what Callie had seen the the morning before, she certainly had more than enough to be upset about. Cristina mumbled something into incomprehensible into the cushion. Callie gingerly approached the sofa; Cristina was a rather mean one under normal circumstances. Who knew what crying could make her do.

"Do you, uh, wanna talk about it?"

Silence.

"Oh....kay then," Callie said after a minute. Whatever Cristina was upset about - and she had a fair idea of what or rather who that might be about - was obviously not information she was willing to share. When she'd almost reached the door to her bedroom though, Cristina called out after her.

"I broke up with him. Last night. I broke up with Owen."

It was 7 o'clock in the morning and as he had been doing for most of the night, Owen was staring up at his bedroom ceiling. There was no fan, and for that he was grateful. He still shuddered at the thought of what he had done to Cristina not much more than 24 hours ago. His PTSD episode triggered by the fan in Cristina's bedroom had cost him their relationship and almost cost Cristina her life. He didn't want to, but for the hundredth time since the night before, Owen ran through everything that had happened between them that day - Him almost strangling her to death and her assurances that she was ok as _she_ held _him_. Their meetings and almost meetings throughout their shifts - Callie and Meredith blocking him from seeing her, that moment in the boiler room when he'd tried to end it and she'd refused to let him. And finally, that bittersweet time in the on-call room that both filled him with uncontrollable joy and tore strips from his heart. Every fibre of his being longed to return to those magical moments when he and Cristina had finally consummated their love, but his ears still rang with the fateful words that had come after. His heart broke afresh, then and there as he remembered the words she'd spoken. How she'd admitted that she couldn't handle it after all. That she was sorry. It wasn't Cristina who should be sorry though, it was him. He was the one had caused all the trouble. He was the one who had made Cristina Yang, the strongest woman he had ever known afraid to fall asleep next to him. And this was the part that hurt the most.

He didn't blame her for breaking up with him. He sure as hell hadn't done anything recently that hadn't contributed to that decision. But for some reason, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that it was really over between them. He'd never felt this way about anyone, not even Beth who he'd been engaged to in the before, and as he had done almost constantly through the night, Owen swore to himself that he would get better and win her love back. That was why he had accepted Derek Shepherd's offer of help and had an MRI. And that was why, as he lay staring up at the ceiling, Owen Hunt did not feel that agreeing to see a psychiatrist was a bad idea.

If only he knew.

**Please Review!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am an author that needs reviews :)**


	2. Avoidance

**A/N: I can't get double spacing to work to show where the story changes and a new set of paragraphs should be, so i'll apologise in advance for the lines. On another note, thank-you to everyone who's reviewed or added this story or me. I appreciate the feedback. You guys rock :) If you're interested by the way, I chose the title for this chapter as avoidance because I think it really sums up the theme of this chapter. Just a little side note.**

**Enjoy.**

_Avoidance._

_Two Days Later........._

Christina was late for work. In fact she wasn't just late, she was absent. For the whole day Callie had sworn she was at home sick to the point where it had sounded like Cristina would have been better off in hospital, but Owen knew differently. Cristina had been assigned trauma and everyone else was unable to swap with her. He knew, because he had checked. That she hadn't come in meant she didn't want to have to see him at work. And that meant she was avoiding him.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, it had been a very, _very_ long day. They had been swamped with trauma after trauma after trauma and Owen's head was still swimming from the onslaught. At one point he had thought that his shift would never end. Eventually it had. Unfortunately, his day wasn't over though; he still had an appointment with Dr. Wyatt, the psychiatrist to go to. He wished he didn't have to, but it was necessary - for Cristina's sake, if not for his own.

Draining the last of his coffee in the cafeteria – a necessity he desperately needed if he was going to make it through the next hour - Owen stood up to leave. It was right about that time that he bumped into Meredith Grey. An awkward silence ensued.

"Dr Hunt," she said curtly.

"Dr Grey."

She walked around him without another word.

"Wait," Owen called out after her. "Meredith?"

She turned and Owen, the tough ex-army man of SGH swallowed audibly at the look on her face. It was what Meredith liked to think of as her assertive face. Derek however, liked to call it her I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass-unless-you-give-me-a-reason-not-to face, although for obvious reasons, he did not say this in her hearing.

"How's Cris-..............How is she?"

He almost fancied that Meredith's face softened ever so slightly before she answered him.

"She's ..................She says she's alright." She didn't give him chance to ask her another question. "I have to go," she said quickly. "I have a......I have a patient I need to go see. Right now. Or he's gonna........die."

Owen frowned at her. "It's 6 o'clock. Hasn't your shift finished?"

Meredith hesitated. "Yeah, but he's still going to.........," she trailed off before hurrying away.

Watching her leave, Owen wasn't at all surprised by the frostiness Meredith was showing him. He wasn't sure he completely understood her and Cristina's relationship, but Cristina had once told him that Meredith was her person. And because Meredith was Cristina's person, then so too must Cristina be Meredith's person. And he had hurt Meredith's person. He was starting to get the feeling that Meredith did not easily forgive someone who had hurt her person.

Noticing that time had suddenly starting going faster and that he was going to be late for his first -and unfortunately not last - meeting with Dr Wyatt, Owen sighed. As he took the elevator to the right floor, his only thought was about Cristina and what she was doing at that very moment.

* * *

When Meredith arrived home shortly after that meeting with Dr. Hunt, she was surprised to find Derek and Cristina in the kitchen together, laughing. _Laughing._ After so long of Cristina disapproving of her relationship with Derek and Derek disapproving of the amount of time she spent with Cristina, Meredith hoped that they were finally both getting over it.

"So.........Shepherd," Cristina drawled, slouched in her chair with an empty glass in one hand. "When are you gonna move out so I don't have to see you whenever I come over?"

Maybe not, Meredith thought. Then another thought quickly followed.

"Cristina, are you _drunk_?" She said it too quietly though, and neither of them heard her.

"You know," Derek countered, "You could just not come over. I mean you see each other at work all day anyway."

"So do you," Cristina retorted. "And I don't see you leaving. Unfortunately."

At that moment, Derek looked up and saw Meredith standing in the doorway.

"Meredith," he smiled, walking over to place a kiss on her cheek. "You're home."

"Greaser," Cristina muttered under her breath.

"How long has she been here?" Meredith whispered to Derek. "Like that?"

"Ah, bout 20 minutes or so," Derek replied. "And you have no idea how _long_ that 20 minutes has been. "

"Did you get her drunk?" Meredith whispered back suspiciously.

"No," Derek said smugly. "She turned up here already like that - mostly. And now that you're here," he added, "I'm going to leave you, my lovely _fiancée_ to sort out your friend."

"That _still _hasn't worn off yet?" Cristina slurred from behind them, "It's been like, two whole days."

"Actually it's been three." Derek replied. "I'll see you later." This time he was talking to Meredith.

As he left, Derek went to kiss Meredith on the cheek again and then thought better of it. Instead he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her passionately.

"Ugh," he heard Cristina grumble. "Cut it out would you? It reminds me of one those fairytale romances little kids get told stories about. It makes me sick."

"I'll see you later." Meredith pushed a grinning Derek out the door. "So, Cristina," she said climbing into the chair next to her, "How're you doing?"

Cristina shrugged. "As long as you get me some more of whatever it was your boyfriend oh no wait, I mean fiancée got me then who cares?"

Meredith pulled her glass out of Cristina's wildly waving hand.

"I don't want to be the grown up one here Cristina but one of us has to, and I think you may have already had enough to drink."

"No," Cristina disagreed. "I don't think I have."

"Really," Meredith said after a moment, "And do you think Hunt would want you getting totally off your face to try and forget him?"

Cristina froze. She had a look of such pain at the words that Meredith began to feel extremely guilty. But she put that out of her mind, because she had to do what was necessary to stop her person doing stupid things.

"I'm just saying," she continued, more gently this time, "Getting drunk is not the answer." She sighed. "I know that you're upset about Owen. _I know that. _Believe me I this is not the way to make yourself feel better. Take it from someone who knows."

For a moment Cristina was silent. Then very quietly, so that Meredith had to strain to hear her she said, "I miss him Mer," she shook her head. "It's been _three days_, and I miss him already."

This was not something that Meredith didn't already know – she had seen the way Cristina acted when Owen was around after all – but it still seemed strange to hear her say it the way she did. Not as though she had lost a pet, or a not even one date boyfriend, but as though she had lost a best friend or a god forbid, a husband.

"I know," she said simply, but she didn't say the next words that came to her lips.

Because just as she had seen the way Cristina acted around Owen, she had also seen the way Owen acted around Cristina - the way he looked at her and the way he worried when she wasn't there next to him like he had done throughout the day – and as much as she recognised the effort he was going to to sort himself out, Meredith knew that Cristina wasn't ready yet. They both needed some time to heal before they could sort out their relationship. And so, she swallowed back the following words and as the night wore on, they stopped ringing so much in her ears.

_He misses you too Cristina. He loves you._

Instead she tried to find something else to distract Cristina with.

"So," She said after a moment. "Izzie was doing much better today................"

* * *

At the same time as Cristina and Meredith were talking, Owen found he had a problem with doing just that - talking. Because although he had prepared himself to share his memories of Iraq, he hadn't realised just how hard it would be to discuss things like that with a complete stranger. And as he sat there on a Dr Wyatt's couch, Owen realised that he simply could not find the words he needed, even when he tried to tell himself to do it for Cristina_._ It was for this reason that his first, and then second and third sessions with the psychiatrist were filled with either silence or unrelated small talk about his life before he had had an imaginary line to divide everything into one of two categories: before Iraq, and after Iraq.

**What did you think? Want to review?.............. :)**


	3. Terminal Part I

**A/N: I have to say, I'm quite enjoying writing this story (I love CxO) and I'm glad you're all enjoying it too. This chapter is going to be the first part of a two part thing (sorta like you might get a double episode). **

**Enjoy!**

_Terminal - Part I_

Sometimes things happen that are out of our control. It may be a complication that arises in the middle of surgery, or it may be an illness that just can't be explained. Either way, as a surgeon you learn to live with these sorts of things. After all, what good is a surgeon who is not prepared for the unexpected?

* * *

Cristina was waiting, and waiting..........and waiting. She had in fact, been waiting for her patient's test results for the last half hour. Well, she wasn't personally waiting for them because she was a resident and one of the perks of being a resident was that you got to order interns around,_ but_ _really_? Thirty minutes for one goddamn lab? She was definitely not sending 2 again - 3 was obviously going to be a much better choice in the future. At the thought of the future, Cristina felt herself begin to imagine the kind of future she might have had with Owen. Angry with herself, she shook her head to clear the thoughts away. She was on trauma today, she was not going to make a fool of herself, and most importantly: she was a professional. No personal feelings were going to interfere today or any other day. At least, this is what she told herself.

* * *

Owen was surveying a young man's X-ray, holding it up to the light so he could better see the damage that had been done. Why anyone would want to climb onto their roof in the middle of a storm to rescue a rat was beyond him, but he could clearly see the results on the film in front of him. On the patient's chart next to _Christopher Warren, 13 years old, _Owen added _fractured humerus, _and_ displaced shoulder. _From behind him he could still hear the argument that had been raging ever since the teenager's mother had arrived.

"I _cannot _believe you would be so stupid Christopher, I mean _what were you thinking?"_

"What? And I was just supposed to just leave him up there then? In the middle of a storm?"

"As opposed to almost dying falling off the damn roof? Then yes, you should have just left the bloody thing where it was."

"It? It? How can you call-"

Owen drowned out the rest of it as best as he could manage when they were evidently not worried about half the hospital hearing. He had heard both sides of the argument more than three times in the half hour he'd been tending to the patient, and his patience was starting to wear a bit thin. That was why when Cristina entered the room a minute later he was particularly happy to see her - aside from the obvious reasons. He watched as she threw a curious glance towards the two, before coming to stand next to him.

"Dr. Hunt, we've got an incoming. Ten minutes away, an overflow from Mercy West," she said business-like. For some reason it reminded him of the way a general would talk in the army.

He nodded, and as much as he'd promised himself he wouldn't think about Cristina like that, he allowed himself to think how nice it was to at least have her talking to him, rather than hiding. She grabbed the X-ray out of his hands and held it up so she could see for herself.

"Nasty break," she commented a moment later.

"Yeah," he agreed. It was weird. When they hadn't been talking to each other, his head had been filled with so many things that he wanted to say to her, but now that they were talking he couldn't think of a single one of them.

Cristina handed him back the X-ray. She hated how awkward it had become between them, but small talk wasn't exactly her thing either so she let silence fill the gaps that she could not. The sounds of the argument that had until that moment been background noise caught her attention as she heard the words rat and roof mentioned. Her interest peaked she asked,

"How exactly did he break his arm?"

"He climbed onto their roof in the middle of that storm this morning to rescue his rat."

"Rat?" Cristina turned to the patient and his mother. "So let me get this straight," she said incredulous, "_You_," she indicated the patient, "climbed onto your roof, in the middle of a storm, to rescue a _rat?"_

"See? See?" The mother started yelling again. "I'm not the only one who thinks it was stupid." She turned to Cristina. "You agree with me, don't you?"

"Uh...." Cristina looked at Owen, the only other sane person in the room for help.

"No," the son called out, "I bet she would have rescued a pet of hers too. Wouldn't you?"

"Uh....." Cristina repeated. Owen wasn't exactly being forthcoming about helping her out and she really didn't want to get caught in the middle of this particular argument. Luckily, at that moment both their pagers went off.

"The Pit," she said relieved after a glance at her pager. She'd almost never been happier to be going there – almost.

"If you'll excuse us Mrs Warren, Christopher," Owen said, all charm as he frequently was with patients. "Dr. Yang and I have to be going. A nurse will be along shortly to sort out that arm."

Outside the room as they ran side by side down to the ambulance bay, Cristina sighed.

"That was intense," she muttered.

"What was that?" Owen had been too lost in thinking that they were only millimetres away from touching to hear what she had said.

"Nothing," Cristina replied after a moment. "It was nothing."

Pulling on the yellow coverings that would prevent blood and/or various other things getting on their scrubs, Cristina couldn't help but remember the time that Owen had tied hers for her, the slight brush of his fingers against the back of her neck as he had made a knot. It wasn't Owen that tied it for her this time though, it was Callie who was closely followed by Alex Karev or as she like to call him, Evil Spawn.

"I heard one needs urgent surgery," he said to Cristina. "They're mine."

Across from her and Evil Spawn, Cristina saw Owen's eyes narrow at the words.

"Nobody is _yours_ ,"he said very quietly, but with a powerful strength and a hint of deep anger that made Alex swallow a little bit; he still remembered the time he and Cristina had been kicked out of the room because they were arguing over which one of them the patient belonged to. It was not an experience he was particularly willing to repeat. It didn't matter though in the end, because when the ambulances finally arrived there was more than enough blood and gore to satisfy both of them. That was perhaps the one thing Cristina liked about Evil Spawn: he as much into that sort of thing as she was.

* * *

By the time their shifts were over, both Owen and Cristina were more than happy at the chance of a break. Their ambulance patients had been a lot more severe than anyone could have guessed, and there was going to be plenty of surgeries the following day. They left the building together, well not together Owen reminded himself, just at the same time. For Cristina it was weird to think of Owen leaving the hospital, after all he seemed to spend 90% of his time there, but it was also annoying. Part of her could not help wondering where he was going, and what he would be doing when he got there. They both would have been surprised to learn that the thoughts running through their heads as they walked silently down the path towards the street were similar. For at that very moment, Owen was wondering what life would be like for both of them if the last few weeks hadn't happened, if he had just gone home instead of to Cristina's, and above all, he was regretting the fact that in about 10 steps they would have to part ways until tomorrow, even if they weren't exactly what you'd call close anymore.

When they finally reached the street, they both hesitated as though some invisible force was pulling them back, pulling them together. Eventually, Cristina broke the silence.

"Well," she said after a moment. "Goodnight Dr. Hunt."

Owen stared at her for a moment, not wanting to have to say goodbye back. In the end though he did, watching as Cristina walked away towards her flat across the street. When she was halfway there, Owen turned and began to walk in the opposite direction, both of them pretending that it didn't hurt to be walking away from the other.

**I know I keep writing this at the bottom of my chapters but i'm gonna do it again anyway. Review? :)**


	4. Terminal Part II

**A/N: Thanks again to all the support I've been getting. Keep it coming. **

**Thanks to KayleeLovesMERDER for pointing out that I'd spelt Derek's last name wrong in previous chapters. It has been fixed. Sorry guys, I promise, I won't do it again :)**

Terminal – Part II

Just as they had predicted, there were many surgeries the next day - so many in fact, that neither Owen nor Cristina saw each other for more than few minutes at a time. There was one patient in between all the rest though, that stood out for Owen. And that patient, that man, was the reason he'd just had a productive session with Dr. Wyatt._ Productive. _It was strange; he hadn't thought he'd be able to talk about it like that. And now he'd found that while it wasn't easy, it wasn't too hard either. And an even stranger thing – he'd actually felt a little bit better as he'd walked out of the room after it. Almost like he'd been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and a little piece of it had just dropped off.

The day hadn't started out quite so smoothly though, in fact he'd had one of his worst nightmares in awhile. Because this time, the dream had involved Cristina. And that wasn't something he was happy about.

_He was back in Iraq. In fact he wasn't just back, he was right at the moment when his life had been torn in two, the moment that had given him a before and an after. All around him, smoke was rising in huge columns from the blazing wrecks that had been their convoy. That had been them. And he froze. There was no other way to describe how he just stood there, becoming his own worst enemy with every second that he let his friends down. But there was nothing he could do. He just stood there like a statue, unable to respond to the chaos around him. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part had come when he'd finally found the freedom to move again. _

_There had always been one soldier that had stuck in his mind. And out of all the ones he had tried to save that day, he was the one Owen regretted losing the most. He could hear the cries of his other companions - not many were left by then - and although some of them were probably in more of a need than this soldier, he still went to him first anyway. Like he did in all his nightmares. Except this time things were different. For when he reached the body that was lying discarded on the roadside, it wasn't his friend's face that he was looking at. It was Cristina's. And that scared him more than he could have thought possible, far more than the danger he was in, or the sight of his comrades in their current state. And just like it happened in all his other nightmares, the mouth on that face opened, and "Owen, you have........you have to let me go..........." came out on the same dying breath it always did. Except this time it wasn't his friend that was saying it. It was Cristina whose lips the words snaked out of......._

He'd woken with a start after that to find his sheets twisted and his face covered in sweat - not too much different from most other nights. Except that morning, it had followed him. Everywhere he'd gone, he'd still heard those words in his ears, still seen Cristina's face in his mind. It had made it very hard to concentrate on his job, and even harder to look at Cristina. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he had been relieved to find out that she was working with Dr. Bailey, and it wasn't until an unusual case had come his way that he'd finally managed to snap out of it.

The case had been unusual because although there was definitely some trauma, there was no surgery that could fix what was really wrong. It was unusual, because they generally didn't get people coming to the hospital who were dying from something you couldn't see - even with X-rays and MRIs. And it was unusual, because the person he had treated, a _complete stranger _had done something for him that he would never know the importance of.

Clarence Greenwood had been a 76 year old, Vietnam War veteran. He'd also had terminal cancer of the bowel. But despite all the medical proof that Owen could have waved in front of him if he'd wanted to, Clarence had vehemently insisted that it wasn't the cancer that was killing him. At least this is what he'd told Owen. Because in Owen, Clarence had seen himself. He'd seen the person he'd been shortly after returning from the Vietnam War – and he'd known the person Owen would turn into eventually without help. At first Owen had dismissed the claims as coming from a mentally ill patient - which Clarence was – but eventually the words he'd spoken had changed to have a different meaning. The thing that had hit home the hardest was when Clarence had told him about his own nightmares, his own violence at times and how those were the things that had made him go crazy - that these things were just as terminal as his bowel cancer. And for the first time, Owen truly understood that the path he was heading down didn't only have one road. There was no doubt that his nightmares had been getting worse lately and it was a massive shock to his system to look at Clarence and think: Is that what I'm going to be like in 40 years? Is that what I'm turning into? And it was such a cliché but at that moment everything had suddenly become just a little bit clearer, a little easier to read.

Cristina had had a horrible day. First off Bailey had sent her interns on errands of her own so that she_, Cristina Yang, RESIDENT, _had had to do all the peasant work herself, and then she'd just had a patient – the patient she'd worked for hours on – die in the middle of surgery from a stupid complication with the anaesthetic. And somehow after all this, she'd ended up at a place she'd told herself she'd never go back to – the vent. Because even with everything that had happened, just being there still managed to make things seem better, easier to handle. That was why, when the door opened shortly after she'd gotten there, Cristina was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice. Unsure whether or not to say something, or leave, Owen stood at the door for a minute until Cristina finally realised he was there.

"Owen," she said, caught off guard before she remembered. "I mean Dr. Hunt."

"No," he replied after a moment. "I don't want us to be strangers Cristina."

She stared at him for a second.

"Ok then," she said after a moment, "Owen it is then."

He smiled. He didn't know why it was, but everything she said seemed so damn perfect. Cristina smiled back. It was first genuine smile she'd seen on his face since, well, since before they'd broken up.

"So what, are we like friends now or something?" She tried to say it as light heartedly as she could, as though it wouldn't matter if the answer was no. But even to her own ears she could hear the pleading behind the words, and she hated herself for being that weak. Hated her voice for betraying the feelings she'd spent so much time during the last few weeks trying to hide.

Owen hesitated. Wasn't this what he'd wanted? A way back into Cristina's life to be more than just her boss again. Yet for some reason his mind stumbled on the question. Then a whole raft of other questions came unbidden into his head, mainly: Was he fixed _enough_ to be safe around Cristina? Yes, he was finally talking to Dr. Wyatt, and yes, he felt better right now than he had in a long time, but just because he felt more of his old self than he had since he'd come back, did that mean it was alright again? Did that mean that giving up Cristina wasn't the sacrifice he would have to pay to get better - as he'd feared it might be? He wasn't sure. After all, hadn't he had a nightmare again that very morning? And that thought brought back the images of Cristina's face on a dying soldier's body. The very memory he'd managed to forget about since his revelation earlier on.

Cristina watched him, waiting for the response to come, _any_ response to come. But he hesitated. And he hesitated some more...................... And some more. Eventually, she gritted her teeth and prepared to storm past him. After all, wasn't his silence a sign that he didn't want to be friends – or anything else – with her anymore? Wasn't it a sign that he was a) trying to find the words to say no, because he was too polite to just say it to her face or b) really shit at coming up with excuses?

As she tried to leave though, Owen quickly stepped in front of her.

"Cristina, wait."

He'd seen the look of pain that had flashed briefly across her face a second ago, and he didn't want her to get the wrong idea about what he was thinking. The wrong idea about why he was hesitating.

"It's just I......" He stopped, struggling to find the right words to express himself.

"What?" She yelled, suddenly far angrier with herself, with him than she'd realised. "You don't want that anymore? You don't want _me _anymore?"

Owen stared at her nonplussed. How, after everything that had happened between them could she doubt that he had loved her? That he _still _loved her?

"Well fine, you know what? You can just –"

She didn't get a chance to say the rest and after a moment she couldn't remember what she had been about to say anyway, because suddenly all she knew was that his mouth had somehow found its way to hers, that his arms were somehow holding her as though she'd been there all along. And she liked it, liked that even after everything that had happened his arms still felt like home. So she let herself get swept along by her feelings, much the same as Owen himself was doing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she dimly realised that he always seemed to be doing this to her – grabbing her when she was least expecting her and kissing her like he would die if he didn't. Unfortunately, good things don't last forever though and eventually they had to come up for air or risk passing out from oxygen deprivation.

"Uh, I'm sorry," Owen said after a minute, "I probably shouldn't have done that."

At that moment, Cristina's pager went off, its beeping insistent enough to distract her.

"Um, yeah, look I would stay but I really have to go." She stepped back reluctantly. "Spinal guy's coding."

As she was rushing out the door, Cristina suddenly turned back.

"You said you were sorry, about what just happened." She smiled. "Don't be. 'Cos I'm not."

And this time when she walked away from him, Owen didn't feel the pang of regret he usually experienced, only the sure certainty that she'd be back.

**.Review ( I'm hoping if i say it enough times you will) :)**


	5. Drinks And A Jacket

****

A/N: Ok wow, once again a great response from everyone who reviewed so thank you to everyone who reviewed.

**And also wow is the fact that I just realised that I've written a chapter every day for the last five days straight! It might not seem that great to some of you reading this but I don't think I've written so consistantly my whole life ( I think it must be because i love CxO so much! )**

**On another note i'm so glad that this 'hiatus' thing that's happening in America right now is almost over. I can't wait until I can go online and watch the new episode because we're only up to episode 9 of this season over here in new zealand and i don't think i can wait that long - at least another 11 weeks! :( to get my Grey's fix. Or at least one that I haven't seen yet.**

**Anyways, hope y'all enjoy this chapter.**

_Drinks And A Jacket._

"So, how are things with you and Dr. Hunt going then seeing you aren't listening to me?"

Cristina looked up guiltily. How had Meredith known that she'd been thinking of Owen instead of listening to a word that Mer had been saying about her and Derek?

"You've had that goofy look that you get when you think about things that make you happy on your face for the last 10 minutes." Mer said, once again reading her mind. It was creepy. Cristina pulled a face.

"I _do not_ have a goofy look," she protested.

"Yea you do," Meredith laughed. "It's still there you know," she added a minute later, laughing even harder.

"Shut up," Cristina grumbled. They were in Izzie's room and her interns could walk in at any moment with updates. She did have an image to protect after all.

"Well, I for one was listening to what you were saying," Izzie said from her place on the bed. She laughed. "And you really do have a goofy look Cristina. It's hilarious."

"So?" Meredith repeated - she wasn't about to give up that easily. "What's the deal with you and G. I. Joe? "

Cristina shrugged.

"Nothing."

"Oh come on," Izzie complained. "Do you know what it's like to sit here in this bed with practically no gossip at all? At least give up _something_."

"Ok, ok," Cristina finally said after they'd been pestering her for another couple of minutes. "I mean it's nothing. We kissed ok? It's not like we're back together again or anything. It's not a big deal."

"You kissed? Where? When?" Izzie clapped her hands excitedly; she was a pure romantic at heart. "Oh, what was it like? Did you like it? Did _he _like it?"

"Um......" Cristina started going red.

"Wait." That was Meredith. "When was this? Why didn't you tell me about this, like straight away?"

Cristina was saved from having to answer their stream of questions by the arrival of Lexie.

"Um, Dr. Yang?" She said timidly. "There's a patient who wants to be discharged and he really shouldn't be leaving, so I thought that maybe you could –"

"Yeah, sure," Cristina said hurriedly grabbing the clipboard with all the information on it out of Lexie's hands.

"But, don't you want me to tell you about-"Lexie started.

"No, it's fine Lexipedia," Cristina called out as she left.

Lexie turned to Meredith and Izzie.

"Ok, what just happened?" She pointed towards the door. "You did just see that right? I mean that was actually Dr. Yang and not some anxious-to-help robot because that would sort of explain it. Can you even get those though? Nice robots I mean because if you could they'd probably cost a lot of –"

"Lexie," Meredith stopped her at mid flow before she completely lost it. "Just breathe, ok?"

"Right, sorry," Lexie replied after a moment. "I do sort of run on a bit sometimes. I mean I don't even realise I'm doing it, you know? I just start saying things and before I know it I've gone onto a whole different topic like how penguins are cute and then-"She caught herself "I'm doing it again aren't I? Sorry I'll........I'll just leave."

Meredith and Izzie exchanged looks.

"Your sister's weird," Izzie said when Lexie had gone.

Meredith pulled a face very much similar to the one Cristina had pulled earlier. "Don't remind me."

Izzie grinned. "So, about Cristina and Dr. Hunt.........................."

* * *

Owen was getting used to his psych sessions, in fact ever since he and Cristina had kissed at the vent he rather looked forward to them, because each session was one less until he could finally be with Cristina again. So far he'd managed to start talking about his third tour in Iraq - not about _that_ day yet, but pretty much everything else. And he hadn't had too many nightmares since the one that had included Cristina either and certainly none of the ones he had had lately had been even half as bad as that one had been. That was why he'd decided he was going to ask Cristina out. He figured he wasn't completely fixed, but surely with the improvement he'd made he was fixed enough for that. It was just to drinks at Joe's after their shifts though because he thought they both probably wanted to take it slow until he got better. He hadn't been surprised when she'd said accepted, but still, he hadn't expected her to take so much persuading to say yes. Ok, well it hadn't been that much he reminded himself – just their mutual agreement that NOTHING was going to happen between them – but still, it had seemed to take forever. He could have sworn that time had slowed itself down deliberately to make the seconds when he'd thought she might actually say no even more painful. But she hadn't said no though, so it didn't matter. It was ridiculous - he'd been walking on air for the remainder of the day after they'd set a time and he was pretty sure that Karev thought he'd suddenly discovered the world of drugs, but no matter how hard he'd tried he _just couldn't stop smiling. _And that good mood had lasted right up until about five minutes ago. Owen looked around at his surroundings again, making sure he hadn't somehow missed her. The bar was pretty full, but not full enough to be anything more than just an average night at Joe's. When the woman walking in the door turned out to have blonde hair, he looked away. It wasn't her. He wasn't sure what to do -it had been half an hour and two beers since they'd been scheduled to meet and he couldn't decide whether to leave or stay and wait. The way he saw it, there were two reasons why Cristina could be late. Either, she'd decided to stand him up or she was just running extremely late. Not surprisingly, he wasn't too keen on the first option so he ordered another beer and prepared to wait.

* * *

It wasn't until Joe was shouting the call for the last orders of the night that Cristina blundered through the door looking slightly red faced and very guilty. She quickly scanned the bar not expecting to see him there, but much to her surprise there he was, looking decidedly lonely as he sat on one of the barstools. She hurried towards him, not wanting to be anymore late than she already was. He noticed her when she was about 5 steps away from where he was sitting. He looked away. She hesitated. On second thoughts he didn't look so much lonely as pissed off and a little bit hurt.

"Look, I know what you're gonna say so don't ok?" She said before he had a chance to ask her why the hell she was over an hour and a half late. "Just give me a chance to explain before you go all angry on me."

He looked at her again.

"Ok, then." He said quietly after a moment. "Go ahead."

"I was late," Cristina started, ignoring his look that clearly indicated he was thinking _you don't say, _"I was late, I am late, because Callie called me as I was leaving to say that a pipe had burst in our flat. Ok? I didn't stand you up, I just had to deal with that first and it took longer than I had expected. That's all. That's it. And you can yell at me now if you want." She took a deep breath in, hoping that he wouldn't take up the suggestion.

But he didn't say anything; he just continued to play with the bottle in his hands as he had been doing through her entire speech. Out of the corner of his eye, he had another look at her. Now that she'd sort of brought it up he did notice that she did look a little bit wet. In fact, she didn't just look a little bit wet, she looked soaked. Before he could stop himself, he started laughing, and Cristina's indignation at being laughed at only made him howl louder.

"Ok, ok," he said when he'd managed to get enough breath back to speak. "I believe you."

"You think it's funny that our bathroom flooded and I just spent the last two hours getting soaked while the plumber tried and almost failed to fix the damn leak?" She accused.

He shook his head. "No, of course not," and it was close, but he didn't quite manage to keep the grin off his face.

"Huh." She didn't believe him. At least he didn't seem to be angry with her though. She silently thanked Callie for insisting that she not waste time getting changed.

"Well," Owen said when Joe called out that the bar was closing. "I guess we'd better leave."

"Yeah," Cristina followed him outside. The air was cold - not quite at the chilly stage but still cool enough to make her shiver. She was wearing wet clothes after all. Owen noticed and before she could protest, he'd stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she mumbled, her teeth chattering ever so slightly.

"No problem," he replied even though she was sure he couldn't have heard her. "I think I'd better take you home before you _really_ get sick."

"You saw through that did you?" Cristina shook her head. "I should have chosen someone else; Callie is a pretty bad liar now that I think about it."

Owen laughed. "Oh well, you'll just have to do your own dirty work next time then."

They arrived at Cristina's place not long after that and she regretted that she'd ruined their chance at spending some time together that wasn't at SGH.

"You know," she said, "I think this therapy thing is really working for you."

"Why do you say that?" he replied, as they stood on the doorstep, sheltered mostly from the wind by the building.

"You look............." she thought for a moment. "Different. Happier. Actually I don't think I've seen you laugh as much ever as you have tonight."

Owen thought about it for a minute. "That's probably true," he admitted.

"Even if it was at my expense," Cristina scowled, but not with the same seriousness as she had in the bar. She didn't mind so much if it made him laugh. They stood there for a few minutes longer. Cristina hesitated, not sure whether she should invite him up. _Would it be safe? _She didn't like thinking that of Owen, but she couldn't help it. He had tried to strangle her after all. Owen noticed that she seemed to be having some kind of internal conflict going on and decided to make the decision for her.

"Well, I should probably be going."

"Yeah," Cristina agreed, somewhat relieved that she didn't have to sort that out anymore.

"I'll see you tomorrow then." He kissed for the second time since they'd broken up, but this time it was on her cheek. And then he left. It sort of reminded her of the classical first date ending with a chaste peck on the cheek and the promise to go out again when she thought about it. It wasn't until she got up to the flat that thanks to a remark from Callie she realised that she still had Owen's jacket wrapped around her shoulders. She wondered if he knew - wondered if he'd left it with her deliberately. Then she shrugged, either way she still had the jacket anyway. And she was tired. It was time for bed.

* * *

The next morning when Callie went to wake Cristina up so that she wouldn't be late for work, she couldn't help but smile at the sight of Cristina curled up on her bed with Owen's jacket wrapped around her, her nose pressed into the collar as she no doubt inhaled his scent with every breath she took.

**Whew! So that's the longest chapter I've written to date (because of all the talking) and in the shortest amount of time too. What'd you think?**


	6. Confidentiality and Bad Ideas

**A/N: Ok, so here's where it starts to get interesting. I'm sort of aiming to have a big finale like type thing going on soon. We've still got a few more chapters to go yet before that happens though, but I'm trying to start building everything up now. **

**Anyway, thanks again to everyone who's reviewed and or added this story/me to their faves/alerts list. You guys rock! Especially everyone who've reviewed every chapter so far. I appreciate it so much :)**

**Sorry I took a bit longer to get this chapter up then the others but it's here so enjoy :)**

_Confidentiality and Bad Ideas_

Owen would kill her if he knew she was thinking about doing this. Ok, bad metaphor Cristina told herself. He wouldn't actually kill her and she knew he still felt guilty about what he had done to her, but there wasn't really any other way to say it. He definitely wouldn't be happy about it at any rate. He might even hate her. That was why she hadn't done more than think about it- she _really_ didn't want him to hate her. What if he never spoke to her again? Thinking about it some more, she decided that what she needed was a second opinion.

* * *

She'd first gotten the idea after bumping into Dr. Wyatt earlier that morning in the hospital cafeteria – not one of the usual places the psychiatrist hung out but Cristina figured that even shrinks needed fuel at some point. Normally she wouldn't have said anything, but for some reason she hadn't quite been able to stop herself from blurting out, "Dr. Wyatt, can I ask you a question?"

Dr. Wyatt had turned to her with a slightly puzzled look on her face. "Ok," she'd replied after a moment.

"I just wanted to ask, well um..."

"Spit it out Yang," Dr. Wyatt had said in her usual brusque manner. "I don't have all day you know."

"Oh, well, um," Cristina had replied surprised, "I was just wondering how Owen's getting on. That is, I mean, how Dr. Hunt's getting on with the whole talking thing."

Dr. Wyatt had smiled, which had been sort of creepy in Cristina's opinion. "I do know who Dr. Hunt is you know. And also about your uh, relationship with him shall I say?"

Cristina had felt herself start to go red. She hadn't thought about Owen telling the psychiatrist about them. _But of course he would have_ she'd reminded herself, he did talk to her about his PTSD after all.

"Anyway," Dr. Wyatt had continued, "You know that I can't tell you anything about our sessions - patient confidentiality and all that."

"Yeah, well...." Cristina had trailed off. At that point she hadn't been sure what she'd been trying to ask anymore, or what answers she'd expected to hear back. She hadn't actually thought about it before she'd opened her mouth. She didn't even know why she'd asked the question in the first place.

"Well, if that's all Dr. Yang," Wyatt had said, "I have a patient waiting for me."

"Wait," Cristina had half yelled after her which had earned her more than a few looks. "Can you at least tell me how's he's going. No details or anything," she'd added hastily.

For a moment Dr. Wyatt had been silent. "What has he told you?" She'd asked eventually.

"That he's a bit happier now. Well," she'd amended, "I said that he looked happier and he said it was probably true."

"There you go then." Dr. Wyatt had replied. "And although I probably shouldn't say this," she added, "From a professional stand point I think he's doing well really well so far too. If he could just-"

"What?" Cristina had asked, suddenly worried at the abrupt stop in Dr. Wyatt's words.

Dr. Wyatt had hesitated before saying, "Ok, now I probably _really _shouldn't be telling you this, but I think that if Owen's going to fully get better he's going to eventually need to confront the part of his past that isn't in Iraq."

"What do you mean?" Cristina had felt immediately suspicious of the way that the psychiatrist had said that. It didn't sound like it was good.

Slowly, Dr. Wyatt had sat down atop a nearby table, motioning for Cristina to take the only seat there.

"What I mean is," she'd said carefully, "that even though he's talking about what happened more, he's still got part of it locked away." At Cristina's blank look she'd hinted cryptically, "Part of it that he's not yet confronted, even in his mind."

Cristina had been confused. How the hell was she supposed to know what Owen had or hadn't thought about? Without elaborating further Dr. Wyatt had left, leaving her to ponder what she possibly could have meant for the rest of the time until her shift officially started. And it had taken her a long time to get it. Or at least she thought she'd got it.

* * *

"So, what do you think?" Cristina turned to Meredith to see her speechless with a frown on her face. "Don't look at me like that Mer, you're my person. You don't get to judge."

"You can't be serious," Meredith said after a minute. She really was having a hard time getting her head around why Cristina would want to do this. It was basically relationship suicide.

"Why not? I mean I know he probably won't like me for....." she gulped at the thought of just how long Owen might hate her for, "a while, but he'll get over it eventually."

"Are you sure?" Meredith asked. "Because this doesn't sound like something he's going to get over real quick."

"It's not that big a deal." Cristina said resolutely. "Is it?"

Meredith almost rolled her eyes. "Hello, Cris, you're thinking about finding his mother. His_ mother."_

"Yeah," Cristina argued, "Only because I want him to get better. I told you what Dr. Wyatt said."

"What she said?" Meredith almost screamed at her in frustration. "The only thing she said was that there's something he hasn't confronted yet which is pretty obvious seeing as he's still seeing her. Besides," she added thinking of her own sessions with the psychiatrist, "She's not exactly your usual type of shrink is she?"

"Yeah, but think about it Mer," Cristina said as she plunged the syringe into the catheter. "What has Owen consistently avoided the whole time he's been back? He's talking about Iraq with Wyatt, so what else is there apart from his mother? She still doesn't know he's back."

Meredith sighed. She could see Cristina had a point about that but she still didn't think that finding Owen's mother and telling her he was back was going to turn out to be a good idea.

"What's it going to accomplish though?" she asked. "You think he's going to thank you when she turns up unannounced? He's obviously not ready to talk to her yet. And why do you think him seeing her is going to help? He could have another panic attack like when that other woman came."

Cristina was beginning to regret telling Meredith about that. "Beth," she said carefully, "was not his mother. And anyway, how do you know that her coming here won't be a good thing?"

"Having your mother around isn't always a good thing you know." Meredith said quietly.

Cristina sighed. "Not everybody's mother is like yours you know."

The words stung Meredith and she was silent for a moment as she started applying a dressing to the patient's arm.

"Ouch," the patient said turning to look at Meredith. "That must have hurt."

"Anyway," Cristina continued, ignoring him. "What if that he doesn't see her and that's what he needs to fully get better? I'm not trying to hurt him Mer; I just want him to be fixed."

Meredith thought about that for a moment while she was finishing the dressing. It was typical Cristina to only think of the benefits and not the consequences of what it took to get them. She could see it the way Cristina did – that while he might hate her for a while, seeing his mother would help him and then eventually he would realise that she was only trying to help him in her own way. She still wasn't convinced though. Cristina really loved Owen. That much anyone could see if they took the time to look closely at her when he was around, but did she love him that much that she was going to potentially sabotage her relationship with him so that he could maybe get over his PTSD?

"Look, Cris" Meredith said after a moment. "It's not up to me is it? You're free to do whatever you want, but I want down for the record that I don't think this is a good idea." She handed this patient's chart to Cristina as she got ready to move onto the next. "Are you really prepared to lose him if this goes wrong?"

"Wow," the patient laughed after Meredith had left. "You two should get your own TV show. It's like watching a daytime soap listening to you two."

Cristina had to stop herself from telling him to shut up. Was Meredith right? Was she really going to screw up everything she had with Owen up if she tried to help him? And _was _she prepared to lose Owen?

* * *

Cristina was standing at the hospital's main entrance waiting for Callie who'd promised to be two minutes but so far had been more like ten, when Owen came up behind her silently, wrapping his arms around her tightly before she even knew he was there. It made her jump slightly and Owen laughed. He didn't know why but he found it funny that _Cristina_ was scared that easily, especially when she was usually the tough one. Cristina could see that some of the other doctors were glancing at them curiously – and some of them were just plain staring at the two of them – but apparently Owen didn't seem to mind because he kept holding her until after Callie finally arrived, smiling knowingly when she saw them.

"You know, we could just go out another night," she said to Cristina as she came up beside them.

"What's this?" Owen asked while still maintaining a hold on Cristina. It felt good to have her in his arms – even if she did seem a little off today – and he didn't really want to let her go.

"I was going to drag Cristina out on a _girl's night out_," Callie replied. "But it's okay if you want to go do something else......" She left it hanging, with no doubt about what she was referring to.

Owen cleared his throat. "No it's fine, I wouldn't dream of getting in the way if you've already got plans," he said, although he really wouldn't have minded getting in the way. Part of him was hoping that Cristina would say she would prefer to go out with him instead.

She didn't though, instead saying, "You know, I'm tired so I think I might just go to bed." _With Owen's jacket, _she added in her mind. Sleeping with it had become a bit of a guilty pleasure for her and she still hadn't given back since he'd wrapped it around her about two weeks before. He hadn't asked for it though nor had he even mentioned it either and she'd come to believe that he didn't want it back. Unless he just had a really bad memory which she doubted considering who he was.

Callie raised her eyebrows. "Ok, then." She really didn't get Yang sometimes. Was she really passing up the opportunity to go out with her boyfriend so that she could go sleep? Ok, so they weren't officially going out, she reminded herself so maybe boyfriend wasn't quite the correct word to use but she couldn't think of one more appropriate either.

Owen was disappointed, Cristina could tell, but she just really didn't want to have to go out with either of them and pretend for the whole night that her mind wasn't somewhere else entirely. After she'd said goodnight to both of them, although not in quite the same way, Cristina quickly walked across the street to the apartment. She was really confused about what do and neither seeing Owen or going out with Callie was going to help her out with that. As she lay in her bed snuggled up once again with Owen's jacket, Cristina had a hard time getting to sleep. Could she do that to Owen if it meant helping him? It would help him, that she was certain of - not so much because of what Dr. Wyatt had said to her but because of the feeling in her gut. As surgeon she'd learned to trust that feeling - had been trained to - but did that mean she was right? After all, Owen was not just another patient who needed help. He just needed help. With these thoughts swirling around her head, Cristina was restless throughout the night. And for once, it was her and not Owen that sleep evaded.

**Review!**


	7. Betrayal?

**A/N: Ok so by the title of this chapter you can pretty much guess what this chapter is going to be about. Or can you? There is a reason there is a question mark on the end.**

**Enjoy at little mystery my friends :)**

_Betrayal?_

It was an unusually slow day. There had hardly been any patients brought in and it almost seemed like Seattle had decided to lock itself indoors and hide for the day. For Owen this was extremely boring. For Cristina though, it was a welcome break after the sleepless night she'd had lying awake until it was almost morning as she tried to decide what she was going to do. All those hours had come to no avail though, because the only thing she'd achieved since she'd woken up that morning was what must be a hundred yawns by now and she was no closer to a decision. The amount Cristina was yawning – and trying terribly to hide it behind her sleeve- was slightly worrying Owen. After all, wasn't it he who was supposed to be the one who didn't sleep well? Not that he had many nightmares anymore, in fact he hadn't had one in over a week and he could only contribute this to his sessions with Dr. Wyatt which would hopefully end soon he thought optimistically. And of course, there was Cristina. At that thought, Owen looked over at Cristina who was dutifully filling out every last of the patient's details onto their chart. He hadn't asked her to do that, but she seemed to be trying to put as much distance between them as she could by finding little jobs to do. That worried Owen too. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why Cristina appeared to have suddenly gone off him a little bit.

"You're staring at me Dr. Hunt," Cristina said without looking up from the chart, "stop."

Owen smiled. He hadn't realised she'd be able to see him watching. "I wasn't staring Dr. Yang," he replied after a moment. "I don't stare."

Owen looked around. They were in his office, and as far as he could tell there wasn't anyone else around outside the room. Cristina saw him looking around and perhaps guessed somewhere along the lines of what he'd been thinking because she decided that it was time to go check on another of their patients. It was hard enough to just talk to and be in the same room as him without him getting ideas as well. She finally got what people said when they talked about feeling like there was an elephant in the room and she had huge, big mama elephant on her hands at the moment. She left Owen to do whatever it was he had been doing before he'd decided staring at her was better and went to check on a patient that didn't really need checking on. Owen knew this, and he frowned at her back as she left thinking, _What the hell is up with Cristina today? _That was why, later on when she began questioning him rather happily, Owen was immediately suspicious.

* * *

"So," she said, trying to find a way to bring up the topic of his mother. "How's it going with Dr. Wyatt?"

"Um, fine," Owen replied slightly mystified, "good even."

"Oh, that's good, that's good," she repeated. The only reason she'd brought it up was because she thought that the best way to help her to decide what to do was to try and scope out what Owen thought about his mother. She had never been one for subtleties though and she couldn't figure out how it was supposed to work. In the end, she decided she might as well just ask him.

"So, uh, have you rung your mother this week?"

Owen froze in surprise, his pen poised above paper, eventually managing to say "Um..........no, not yet." Now he was _really_ confused. First Cristina was acting as though she didn't really want to be in the same room as him and now she was asking him about his mother - _his mother. _Apart from that time he'd told Cristina about her before pleading with her to see him because no one else could anymore, they'd never talked about his mother. It just wasn't something he talked about – with anyone.

"Oh, um, that's nice," Cristina mumbled. Now she really didn't know what to say. Owen narrowed his eyes and this time he really was staring at her.

"Are you ok Cristina?"

"What?" She glanced up surprised to see that he was somehow now only a step away from her when he had been across the other side to the room only seconds ago. How did he move that fast, she wondered, and that quietly?

"I said," he repeated, "are you ok?" Before she could stop him, he'd wrapped his arms around her and was staring at her intently as he tried to figure out what was wrong with her. _I could get lost in those eyes_ she thought before she could censure herself.

"Nothing," she smiled, and for the first time that day it was a genuine one. Something in those eyes of his had given her the answer she'd been looking for. Owen continued to stare at her for another minute at least before he was convinced she was telling the truth. Now that she'd had one thought, she couldn't be bothered to stop the rest from flowing in and then she really couldn't stop thinking about how much she loved his blue eyes. How much she loved him. And when she thought about it like that there really was only one choice she could make. This time when they kissed, it was she that brought her lips to his and although he was still confused by her abrupt changes of attitude, Owen didn't complain. He was just happy that whatever had been bugging her seemed to have gone away.

* * *

That night, Owen took Cristina to Joe's and thankfully it wasn't even close to a repeat of their previous attempt at a date. When they went back to Cristina's though, she noticed a slight change come over Owen. He seemed more hesitant and at one point she'd actually thought he might refuse to step over the threshold and come inside. Even when they found out that Callie was there, sitting in front of the television as she watched a program that Cristina didn't know and didn't want to know. Soppy, love sorts of things were definitely not her at all. Owen laughed when he saw the face she made although it wasn't the same laugh she'd heard the week before. There was something missing that made it somehow ring false.

"Oh, hey guys," Callie jumped out of the seat. "I'm just going to go and uh, be out of the way in my room."

Owen stopped her. "No, that's not necessary. I'm not going to stay."

"You're not?" Both Callie and Cristina said it at the same time.

"No," Owen said turning to Cristina. "I don't think that's a good idea just yet." He glanced at the door to Cristina's room which stood wide open. It was hard not to look at it and think of the last time he had been in there. Of the last time he'd stayed the night – well most of it anyway. "Do you?"

"Well, Callie said after he'd left minutes later, "That was.......interesting."

"What?" Cristina replied. Although she'd been happy when Owen was still there, she could already feel that mood fading because he'd gone.

"I thought you two would be jumping all over me to get to your room when you came in but he definitely wasn't even thinking about going there."

"Yeah, well," Cristina mumbled. Suddenly all she wanted to do was go to bed with Owen's jacket and sleep for days – she was that tired.

"Right," Callie replied, and for once she decided to leave it at that rather than carry on and risk saying something that she might regret later. It wasn't until Cristina had gone to bed that she shook her head and muttered, "Strange."

* * *

Lying on his own bed, Owen was staring at the ceiling as he did most nights. He'd been glad to leave Cristina's place as much he didn't want to admit it and very relieved to be home. There were just too many memories lingering there right now for him to want to stay. Even thinking about what had happened still made him feel slightly sick even though it had been all those weeks ago. He'd made a promise to himself that he wouldn't put Cristina in danger again until he was absolutely certain that it was safe and he was determined to keep that promise. That was why he'd left when he had, because he'd had a feeling that if he left too long then he wouldn't have been able to convince himself to leave anymore - so great were the charms Cristina possessed. He almost laughed out loud at the thought of what Cristina would say if he ever told her that. He could almost see the sneering look that would adorn her face as thought she were right in front of him. One thing he was glad of though was that although he might not be there for her in person, he was still there for her in the form of his jacket. Well, he corrected himself, it was really hers now. He had been planning to ask for it back originally but when he realised that she had no intentions of giving it back unless he asked for it, he decided to pretend he hadn't realised he'd left it with. He was still having a hard time getting his head around the fact that Cristina Yang could be sentimental about something that wasn't surgery related. And he liked it. Even if he had wanted to get out of there the minute they'd arrived at her apartment, he'd still liked seeing his jacket peeking out from the under the edge of her blankets. His last thought before he fell asleep was about Cristina keeping his jacket close during the time when he couldn't be there himself.

* * *

About a week later, a woman turned up at the hospital. She made her way to the main desk taking in the hospital with more leisure than normal. When she reached the desk, a nurse asked whether she could be helped with anything.

"Why yes," the woman replied. "I'm looking for Dr. Owen Hunt."

**Well once again all i have to say here is: review! please :)**

**P.S: Now I promised a big finale for the end so there's going to be three chapters which are each one part. Big suspense huh? All questions will be answered shortly ;)**


	8. Life Changes Part I

**A/N: Sorry I took a little longer on this chapter than usual but I'm back now, I promise. Once again thanks so much to everyone who's given me such positive feedback : ) I don't think I could live without you guys, you all rock! **

**Anyway hope you enjoy it : )**

Life Changes Part I

Owen was quickly grabbing a patient's chart from the desk when one of the nurses told him a note had been left for him that morning when he was in surgery. He frowned as the nurse went to retrieve it. Who would leave him a note? Surely it wouldn't have been Cristina. When the nurse finally handed him the note at first he thought there must have been a mistake. He didn't even read most of it; he couldn't get past the name signed at the bottom of the note. It was impossible. His mother didn't even know he was back from Iraq let alone the hospital he was working at. He could feel himself freezing over, very much like that time with the helicopter on the rooftop of the hospital. It wasn't until the concerned nurse asked him if he was ok that he realised he'd been staring at the note in his hands for more than a few minutes. He thought back to all his sessions with Dr. Wyatt. What was it she had said? Something about taking deep breaths? Trying to follow that advice he took a deep drag of air in. He noticed that the nurse was still waiting for an answer so he told her he was fine with as much confidence as he could manage. It wasn't much. And as he walked away, Owen did something he had never done up until a few weeks ago – he admitted to himself that he was most definitely not ok.

Cristina had noticed a change in Owen which had happened abruptly in the space of about five minutes during rounds. She didn't know what had caused this change in behaviour though, so she decided to let him choose whether or not he wanted to share it with her. Whatever it was though, it was starting to annoy her. She liked the new happy Owen she'd been seeing lately and she didn't like the thought that something was making him unhappy. Shaking her head she tried to put it out of her mind. She had enough work stuff to think about without letting this take over as well.

Owen was still trying to figure out what had happened. He certainly hadn't told his mother he was home despite both Dr. Wyatt and Cristina telling him it might be a good idea. It couldn't have been the psychiatrist though; doing something like this would be a violation of his rights. But, he thought, that just left...........Cristina. His first instinct was to dismiss that thought straight away – Cristina wouldn't do something like this to him – but then he hesitated. _Would she?_ She had been asking him about his mother a lot the week before. And she'd been acting sort of strange with him for a while after that. It couldn't all be a coincidence could it? He didn't say anything to Cristina about it though; he wanted to at least think about it properly before he asked her if she was responsible for this. It wasn't until that afternoon that he got his answer in the form of Meredith Grey.

Cristina and Meredith were eating in the cafeteria. They were alone at their usual table – no one else seemed to have gone on their break yet – and somehow, the conversation swung to Owen.

"So," Meredith eventually asked. "What'd you do about, you know."

Cristina frowned. "You know," she replied, "unfortunately mind reading is not one of my many talents."

Meredith rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. What'd you decide to do about Owen's mother? Did you ring her up or what?"

They weren't talking very loud, but for some reason Cristina suddenly had the urge to tell Mer to shush.

"Well, I....." Cristina froze. Standing behind Meredith with a very hurt look on his face was Owen and she had no doubt that even if he hadn't heard the whole conversation, he'd definitely heard that last sentence from Meredith.

Owen couldn't believe what he'd just heard. _Had _he heard right? He didn't know why he was so surprised. After all, he had been thinking that maybe Cristina had had something to do with it, but he wasn't prepared for how much it hurt to know that she had done this to him - deliberately done the very thing that he was nowhere near ready to do for himself. Called his mother and told her he was back from Iraq. Feeling worse than any of his PTSD episodes had ever left him feeling, Owen backed away from the table slowly. Somewhere in the back of his mind Owen heard Cristina calling out after him but he ignored her. He left the cafeteria and turned right with no thought to the steps he was taking or the direction he was going.

"Owen!" Cristina yelled after him one last time before exclaiming loudly, "Crap!" Before she could talk herself out of it, she ran after him. Damn Mer and her loud mouth. Ok so that wasn't really fair she reminded herself as she chased the sight of Owen's coat turning around yet another corner. As she hurried after Owen, although it was completely random and probably very bad for her, Cristina couldn't help thinking _how the hell does he walk that fast?_

Owen finally stopped walking. Somehow he'd ended up outside. He started to feel slightly better as the breeze reached him and blew the edges of his white coat up. He started to think that maybe if he just did the deep breathing thing again he might be calmed down enough to go back inside after a few minutes. Maybe not he thought a moment later when he saw Cristina coming towards him. She was red faced presumably from running after him and the sight of her stirred something inside him that he hadn't felt in a while and thought he'd never feel towards Cristina - anger.

"Owen please," she called as soon as she got close enough for him to hear. "Just let me explain."

"Shut up!" Both of them were surprised at the vehemence in his voice. Cristina stopped, taken aback.

"What you did," Owen could hear his voice rising "How could you do that to me? How could _you _do _that _to me?"

"I only thought about it because Dr. Wyatt said it might help you," Cristina protested. "I only wanted to help you Owen, can't you see that?"

"No, you know what I don't see that. Not at all," Owen replied. Cristina watched him start to turn and walk away.

"Wait, Owen please."

"No," Owen wheeled back to face her. "Don't. Just don't."

"Just talk to me ok," Cristina replied desperately, she couldn't escape the feeling that Owen was slipping away from her.

"That's the thing," Owen snarled. "I don't _want_ to talk to you. I - don't – want – to – talk – to – you." "In fact," he added after a second. "I don't want to see you ever again." Later on, he would come to think about whether he actually meant that, but at that moment he was too angry to care.

"Owen!" Cristina repeated as he reached the sliding doors of SGH's main entrance.

"Just leave me the hell alone." He threw the words that she said to him not so long ago back at her carelessly, leaving her standing outside with a shocked expression on her face. Stunned, she slowly walked back inside feeling like the ground might disappear from under her feet at any moment to find Meredith, Derek and Mark at the main desk.

"Wow," Mark said with his usual insensitivity when he saw her walking towards him. "You look far more terrible than normal. Did something happen?" he asked with mocking concern.

Cristina couldn't even manage to throw him one of her trademark withering glances. He knew, of course - anyone standing within 20 metres of the doors would have heard everything that had just happened.

"Are you ok?" Meredith asked concerned. She didn't necessarily agree with what Cristina had done but at the end of the day she was still her person.

"She's obviously not," Derek put in, "look at her face."

"It was a bit of a low blow though," Mark continued unsympathetically, "Calling his mother and all that so she'd come here."

"What?" Cristina chocked out, shocked. "Owen's mother came here?"

"Wait a minute," Meredith replied confused, "You didn't know? It wasn't you? You didn't tell her Owen was back?"

"No," Cristina didn't know what to say. She finally understood why Owen was so angry with her - he wasn't annoyed that she'd _thought _about calling his mother, he was upset because he thought that she _had_ called his mother. "I didn't call her," she told Meredith. "What the hell was she doing here then?"

"I don't know," Meredith replied. "But if I were you, I'd explain all this to Owen before it's too late."

Cristina never got a chance to go find him and explain though, because at that moment there was a huge bang that shook all the windows of the hospital. Owen, safely holed up in an empty exam room, couldn't help but think that somewhere nearby a bomb had just gone off.

**  
Thanks so much for reading! Anyway, please review : )**


	9. Life Changes Part II

**A/N: Ok so I didn't get as many reviews last chapter as I would have hoped :( but that's ok. Thanks to everyone who did review though I really appreciate it. This is the second to last chapter :O so hopefully you'll like it :)**

_Life Changes Part II_

Everything was chaos. In semi straight lines, the doctors ran towards the scene of the explosion. Owen was a step behind Cristina and she was glad of that because it meant she didn't have to look him in the eye. She wanted to explain, and more than anything she wanted him to forgive her. She was afraid though; afraid he'd reject her again so she concentrated on running, rather than what was bothering her more than anything had ever bothered her in her life.

Owen still couldn't get his head past the how much like a roadside bomb the explosion had sounded. It was all in his mind, he knew that, but it was what he had been trained to think and it wasn't easy to un-train himself. He also couldn't quite put his anger at Cristina out of his mind. He still felt extremely betrayed and so........furious and having her so close to him wasn't exactly helping that. Looking around, Owen could see Derek, Mark and of course Cristina in front of him, - they had been the first ones to respond when the explosion had caused the hospital's windows to shake in their frames – the chief, Meredith and Callie next to him and behind them Bailey was with a couple of the interns. He guessed the other residents must have stayed behind to mind the patients already at the hospital. Turning his mind back to more important things, Owen thought that it was perhaps the strangest situation he had been in. Here he was with what seemed like almost half the doctors of SGH, running _towards_ the scene of an explosion which had taken place about half a mile away from the hospital because quite simply, word was that the patients were mostly too injured to come to them. He couldn't quite get his head around why it was so strange to him - after all he was a trauma surgeon and an ex-army trauma surgeon at that. In the end though, he managed to come to the conclusion that it was probably because he wasn't in the middle of Iraq running towards victims of a bomb blast, but because he was in Seattle, United States of America - on home territory you could almost say – running towards the victims of a petrol station fire.

The chief had briefed them before they'd left but there hadn't been much time and it had been short. Cristina understood the basics though – don't move the patients unless absolutely necessary, stabilise them as soon as possible for transport back to the hospital, ask the attendings for instruction and above all do not engage in any personal discussions with red-headed, blue-eyed trauma surgeons until after the crisis had been averted. Well, she had added that last one herself, but she repeated it in her mind with the rest all the same. As far as Cristina knew none of them had been in this situation before; sure they'd dealt with burns victims in the past but they hadn't done it in the field. That was, except for Owen of course. She started to slow down once they were within about 10 metres from what had apparently once been a service station. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the blackened building. Around that, petrol pumps that should have been there appeared to have vanished. _They all must have gone in the explosion, _Cristina thought, although on a closer inspection she had to correct herself. _All of them but one that is _for at the very end of what had once been a row of pumps, one remained. It seemed for some reason there had been a gap between this pump and the others. Fire crews were still battling some of the blaze but they didn't seem unduly worried by the fact that there was still one petrol pump left so Cristina put that out of her mind and got to work. Apparently the chief hadn't been kidding when he'd said there would be more than enough patients for everyone. As she bent down to assess the first, Cristina couldn't help but noticing that everyone including the chief, seemed to be looking to Owen for direction about the serious cases. And although the brightness of the fire contrasting to the blackout of the smoke was making her eyes hurt, from a distance Cristina could have sworn that Owen was ignoring them.

Owen couldn't help but just stand there and stare. And stare. And then stare some more. In the back of his mind he registered that it was not unlike his other freezing episodes and that he probably could move if he really put his mind to it, but the scene in front of him took him back to a place that he really didn't want to go back to. He knew what he should've been seeing. He should have been seeing a petrol station, the remains of petrol pumps and a couple of blackened cars at the very edge of the blast. He also should have been seeing maybe up to as much as thirty patients with injuries ranging from mild to serious life-threatening burns as well as a range of other complaints. Somehow though, the road at his feet became dirt, the air dusty. The petrol station became the ruined shell of a shelter bombed long ago and the cars became blazing army trucks. And the patients...........to his damaged mind the patients became wounded soldiers. His mates. His brothers on the battlefield. Dimly he could hear voices calling him to assess various patients – the voices of his colleagues who came the closest to being his friends now that he was back. Except he wasn't. Looking about him at what a few months ago he would have told himself belonged in the before, he could have believed that what he was seeing was real - that he truly was in Iraq and that the patient he'd suddenly found himself pulled over to was the dying soldier of his dreams. Owen felt his heart start to beat faster in his chest, his head start to pound. Being here, wherever he seemed to be, made him feel nauseous. It was like his worst nightmares had merged together to become a terrifying reality.

Cristina was onto her third patient. Or maybe it was the fourth, she didn't know anymore. She'd lost track after the second, there was just too many around and smoke inhalation was beginning to make her cough. At least the smoke was thinning down a bit now, she thought, a small mercy against the heat of the fire. Without realising it, Cristina had managed to get perhaps the only patient who was unhurt and for some unknown reason, hanging around. Cristina quickly sent her off to SGH for a check-up – she didn't have time to muck around with people whose only problem was a small dose of being scared. The next patient she found herself at was Owen's. Except he wasn't doing anything. Even one of Karev's interns could have been able to tell the man needed a trache or he was going to die. Soon.

"What, are we waiting for equipment or something?" She yelled over the noise around them at Owen as she took the patient's pulse. When he hadn't replied after half a minute, Cristina looked up with a scathing comment about how it wasn't it he who was always harking on about being professional ready in her mind. When she saw him though, really looked at him, the words froze on her lips.

"Owen?" She realised she probably shouldn't be calling him that anymore, but at that moment she didn't care. All she could see was the vacant look on his face and the glazed over eyes that she unfortunately knew so well. She didn't have to be his psychiatrist to know that he was having another PTSD episode. How bad it was, she didn't know, but she couldn't help but be worried. Hesitantly, she reached a hand out to touch his arm. She did it slowly though; she still remembered the last time she had surprised him and she wasn't looking for another cut arm.

It was almost like time had stopped. Everything was starting to blur and as he fought to bring himself out his vision, Owen occasionally caught glimpses of what was really happening around him. For the first time, in all of the episodes he'd had, Owen began to realise that he could beat it – that he could bring himself back to reality if he just managed to calm down long enough to think rationally. In the back of his mind like a broken record, Owen could hear Dr. Wyatt's advice playing over and over. "Owen?" He heard his name spoken to him as though it was being whispered from far away - he caught just a wisp of it before it floated past. A few seconds later he felt a hand on his arm and when he looked down, he saw Cristina's hand and the world that had been holding him was gone.

He seemed to be back. That she was grateful for, both for herself and for the patient next to them whose lips were starting to turn blue from oxygen deprivation – he really wasn't going to last much longer. Owen didn't seem to notice him at first though; he just stared at her hand which was still resting on his arm. Mistaking what he was thinking, she quickly withdrew it.

For a second Owen couldn't help but be disappointed – he'd actually been thinking that she'd acted like a lifeline for him and pulled him out of the last reaches of his mind to safety, but when she took her hand back he reminded himself that he was supposed to angry with her. Somehow though, he just couldn't bring himself to it. It was like he'd left all his anger back in the other place. Cristina turned away towards the man he'd took for his wounded friend and Owen finally remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. The guy was dying, that much was immediately obvious. Before he knew it, Owen had switched back into his trauma surgeon mode, the one that had gotten him through three tours. What they needed was a trache and seeing as they were in the field he guessed they wouldn't have one. So he decided to do what he did best. He improvised.

Cristina could only watch in amazement when Owen began to perform a tracheotomy in front of her. With a pen. It reminded her of the first time they'd seen each other, except this time she actually got to see him do the pen trache. She suddenly wondered if he kept pens on him for occasions just like this seeing as he seemed to do it so much and she began to grin although she didn't quite know why. When she looked up, she saw that Owen was smiling too. From somewhere to her left, Cristina heard the chief calling her.

"Go," Owen said, gently pushing her in the right direction and for the first time since their fight, Cristina allowed herself to think that maybe everything would turn out ok in the end.

Owen watched her go before turning his attention back to keeping the man alive. As he blew air into the pen, his head turned slightly towards the left, Owen's eyes narrowed. From the level he was at, he could see what looked like ends of fingers from behind the only gas pump that was left in the row. Calling an intern over, Owen relinquished the pen and the man to him. He'd been taught to evaluate risk and it looked like it was reasonably safe with the direction the wind was blowing so he started to go towards the pump. On the way, he noticed Cristina walking back towards him so he called to her to follow him.

They were going towards the sole remaining pump - an area that everyone seemed to be staying away from - so Cristina thought that Owen must have had a pretty good reason for leading her in that direction. It wasn't until they were almost there that she saw what undoubtedly had drawn Owen.

"There's a person behind there?" She called out to Owen who nodded.

"Yeah, I think so."

They both were surprised a moment later when they saw that the person was a very bloody and very unconscious Dr. Wyatt.

Chief Webber had never seen anything quite like it in all his years. They seemed to have worked through the worst of it though, and he was rather proud of the way everyone from the attendings to the interns present had handled themselves. Sending another patient off in an ambulance, the chief was confident they would get through this in not too much longer. That was why when the fire chief approached him he was not expecting the words that came next.

Owen and Cristina were working together on Dr. Wyatt and both of them were secretly enjoying that fact. The psychiatrist didn't seem to be in too bad a way and they were hopeful as they quickly did what they could to staunch the blood flowing from the deep cut in her scalp. She was still unconscious but Cristina was glad because in her mind it made her easier to work on. From back across where they'd been before, Owen realised that everyone seemed to be clearing out and not in a good way, but in a way that suggested danger was imminent and they were hurrying to get everyone to a safe distance. At the same time he wondered why it seemed to be getting colder suddenly.

"Uh, Owen?" Cristina said and when he followed the direction of her stare to the building behind them, at first he was confused. The fire there was pretty much out, smouldering quietly in fact. And then he realised that she wasn't staring at the building, but that she was staring at the patch of grass next to it which was on fire. For a moment Owen wondered just how it had become like that and then he realised – the wind had changed direction and was now blowing towards them. That was why he thought it was getting colder, and that change of direction had been enough to set alight the patch of grass. The same patch of grass that snaked along the boundary fence towards them and towards the last unexploded petrol pump that they were less than a metre away from.

Chief Webber had gathered them all around him and was doing a head count to make sure everyone was there. After looking around to make sure Derek was safe, Meredith scanned the crowd for Cristina, her heart doing a somersault when she realised that she wasn't there. She checked again and then twice more just to be sure. Then began to panic despite her best efforts not to and it wasn't until she asked Derek if he'd seen Cristina that everyone realised that both Cristina and Owen were missing.

The fire was spreading quite quickly towards them now that it had the wind behind it but both Cristina and Owen knew that they couldn't move Dr. Wyatt yet. So they continued to work on her, both keeping one eye on the flames that were creeping towards them at all times, Cristina quietly cursing whoever had decided that the grass didn't need mowing for another week.

"We have to go," Cristina said to Owen and although he didn't want to move Dr. Wyatt just yet he knew that she was probably right.

"Just let me finish this," he replied before telling her to leave.

"I don't think so," she retorted, "If you get to stay then I get to stay."

Owen thought about arguing then decided it wasn't worth it. Cristina was too strong minded for him to make her do something that she didn't want to do anyway so he simply shrugged. A minute later, Cristina repeated what she'd said and this time Owen agreed with her out loud. They did need to move. From his assessment they had maybe another two and a half minutes before they went up in smoke with the last pump and he didn't particularly relish that thought.

"Ok," he nodded to Cristina who was poised to pick up Dr. Wyatt's legs. They'd decided the easiest way to carry her out was with her laid out as though she was on a stretcher because they still didn't know if she had any internal injuries especially of the brain from the knock to her head. Finding that out would be a job for Shepherd later. For now though, they concentrated on picking her up carefully.

"Ok," Cristina replied and they both picked her up. They began to move slowly away from the pump – they couldn't move too fast without possibly causing the psychiatrist harm. Glancing back, Owen realised that he had miscalculated on his estimate of how much time they had left. In one look he realised they actually had more like just over a minute and a half.

"Quickly," he told Cristina "we don't have a lot of time," and she didn't argue. She too knew that they were running out of time. As they started away from the pump towards the 'safe zone', Cristina hoped like hell that they would make it.

_A minute or so later, the last petrol pump exploded.........._

**:O Well as you can probably tell by now I like to leave you with some suspense at the end of each chapter (or at least these last ones anyway). What'd you think? Let me know, please i do really really like reviews :) (hint, hint)**


	10. Life Changes Part III

**A/N: OMG! OMG i just watched the latest episode. Did anyone else almost cry with the three letter word part with O/C? OMG! that was torture........**

**OK. So this was supposed to be the last chapter of _this_ story. Except now I'm wondering if it should be or if I should carry on with this. So I'm asking you, readers, for your opinion. **

**Question: Should I just add chapters onto this story OR should I start a sequel?**

**Please think about this while you read this chapter :)**

**Hope you enjoy it.**

**And thank you to everyone who has reviewed/ added me/my story to their alerts/faves list during the whole duration of this story. I love you all :)**

**Dedication: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to nikkitan89 who has reviewed every single chapter of this story so far. Thank you very much! p.s I hope you don't mind me dedicating this to you :)**

Life Changes Part III

_Five minutes later..........._

The ambulance siren was on although they were only a couple of minutes away from the hospital and Cristina couldn't help but think that was a little bit ridiculous. She was in the ambulance of course, and so was Owen. She shook her head when she thought how close that had been. Her pulse was still sky high and she was pretty sure she was going to go into cardiac arrest soon unless her heart slowed down a bit. Owen was sitting across from her and she felt herself smiling at him as soon as she looked in his direction. He smiled back and although she hadn't thought it possible, her pulse began to race even faster. What it was about the man that had that effect on her she didn't know, but whatever it was she decided it was damn good to make her feel like that with a single smile. The adrenaline rush she had probably wasn't helping either. Between them on the gurney was Dr. Wyatt who'd come to a couple of minutes before and was muttering groggily under her breath things Cristina couldn't quite hear above all the other sounds. She almost laughed when she thought about the chief's face when they'd appeared coughing and carrying the psychiatrist through the smoke after the second explosion. They hadn't quite managed to get all the way to the safe zone but luckily they'd gotten far enough before the last petrol pump exploded to escape injury. Even luckier was the fact that Owen had managed to talk the chief into letting them in the ambulance straight away because she'd been sure he was felt like killing them himself for being irresponsible or something like that. Mind you, she reminded herself, he had mentioned something about talking to them later. She really didn't like the sound of that...........

* * *

Owen was putting the finishing touches to the bandages on Dr. Wyatt's forehead when she woke up again. It wasn't really a job for an attending but he felt it was the least he could do for all the help she'd given him. Well, except for that thing with Cristina but at the moment he was trying not to think about that. When Cristina herself came in a minute later to tell him surgery was about to begin on one of his patients he was sure that for some reason Dr. Wyatt was appraising the conversation, appraising them. His suspicion was confirmed when after Cristina had left she said, "So, I guess things are a little strained between you at the moment then."

Owen stared at her for a few seconds. She was pretty good to be able to pick that up from a few words.

"I'm a shrink, remember?" she guessed what he'd been thinking. "I know all about body language."

"Things aren't........that bad between us," Owen replied and he was surprised to hear how defensive his voice sounded, even to his own ears.

"But they aren't good either?" Although it was a question, she said it in a way that Owen knew he didn't need to answer, like she was stating a fact. "I also guess you must not like me very much either huh?" She said it rather sadly and Owen felt bad for having thought he hated her for a while after his fight with Cristina.

"No," he said after a minute. "I'm not angry with you anymore."

"What were you angry with me for?" she asked and Owen realised what she was doing. She was doing what she'd done during therapy by making him answer questions that she already knew the answers to in an effort to make him talk about things. For example, when they'd been talking about his dream she'd asked: And why did seeing Cristina's face on the soldier's body scare you? Even though the answer was fairly obvious.

Owen sighed. "Because of what you said to Cristina," he admitted reluctantly. He wasn't really feeling that keen to get into it right then and there.

"OK, I sense some hesitation here," the psychiatrist smiled, "so I'm going to let this go for now because I'm tired and I think I'm about to go to sleep on you. Don't think you're out of the woods though," she warned, "Our sessions may have finished but I can still track you down."

It took Owen a few seconds to realise the importance of what she'd just said. "What do you mean our sessions are finished?" he asked surprised.

"You've talked about everything, I think you've forgiven yourself for what happened and today you proved that you can deal with situations that remind you of Iraq. Trust me," she added seeing the look on his face, "You don't need me anymore."

"Are you sure?" Owen still felt suspicious of his abilities to control himself and he wasn't about to give up therapy until he was sure he could sleep in the same bed as Cristina and manage not to strangle her this time.

Dr. Wyatt laughed at his apprehension. "Don't look so worried. And yes, I'm sure." When Owen still didn't look convinced she said, "Ok, let me ask you a couple of questions then. First of all, how do you feel about what happened in Iraq?"

Owen thought about it for a moment. "Just....sad I guess."

"But not guilty? You don't blame yourself?"

"I...no," Owen said slowly as he realised he didn't blame himself anymore. And then he wondered how the psychiatrist had known that when he hadn't known it himself.

"OK, second question: when was the last time you had a nightmare?"

"Um, not for a while. I don't know exactly."

"If you had to guess, how long would you say?"

"Maybe a couple of weeks or so." Had it really been that long? he thought. He'd started to lose track of time very easily lately. Maybe that was why he hadn't noticed.

"And the third and last question. Where are you living?"

At first Owen thought she meant where he was living as in geographically and he was about to answer Seattle, obviously, when he realised that wasn't actually what she meant. She meant where he was living as in the before or after. After so long of thinking of this new life as the after and his army days as the before he almost said 'I'm living in the after' purely out of habit. Except he wasn't he realised. He wasn't living in the after or the before anymore. He was just...........living. Again he wondered why he hadn't realised this before.

"Now, just now," he answered with a note of pride in his voice, "I'm just living."

Owen wasn't surprised when Dr. Wyatt nodded at that. She seemed to know far better than he did himself what he was feeling.

"OK then."

Owen could tell the psychiatrist was about to crash out and he felt a little guilty for keeping her awake when she should really have been resting.

"OK then," he repeated her words. "I think it's time you rested." He was about to leave the room when she called out after him.

"I, ah, I am sorry for what happened with your mother Owen you know. I probably shouldn't have said anything to Dr. Yang about her."

"No," Owen replied. "You shouldn't have."

"Just goes to show having a shrink around isn't always a good thing huh?" she laughed self mockingly.

"Why's that?" Owen asked amused.

"Well first of all, I caused a fight between you and the woman you love and then you almost killed yourself to save me from death by a petrol pump. Doesn't exactly sound like I'm the best person to know does it?"

Owen laughed. "Well, when you put it like that."

Just before she'd fallen asleep, Dr. Wyatt had asked him one more question: "What are you waiting for?" That was all she'd said and although Owen couldn't be sure exactly what she'd been referring to but thinking about it a few minutes before his shift ended, he couldn't help but ask himself the same question. What _was _he waiting for?

* * *

Cristina had finally finished her shift. She knew Owen had finished his about a half hour ago and she was hoping she still might be able to catch him before he went home, wherever that was. She desperately wanted to talk to him; she'd been trying throughout the day but there had never been time. So she was looking for him now because she wasn't exactly sure where she stood, where they stood. Was she going to get a chance to explain? Was he going to forgive her? Had he forgiven her? These questions and many more were swirling around her head as she looked for him. He had smiled at her, and although she might just be reading too much into this so she could see what she wanted to see, Cristina thought that was a sure sign he at least wasn't as angry at her as he had been. She sure as hell didn't want to think about what it meant if she was wrong.

"Hey," Callie came through the hospital's main doors and up the path behind her.

"Hi," Cristina replied, contemplating whether or not to ask her if she'd seen Owen.

"If you're looking for Dr. Hunt which I assume you are seeing as you're standing around out here when it's _freeeeeeezing,_ then you're wasting your time. I saw him leave about 20 minutes ago."

"Oh," Cristina replied, not quite able to hide her disappointment.

Callie slung her arm about Cristina's shoulder and started walking towards their flat, pulling Cristina along with her.

"It's alright. We can just I dunno, watch a movie or something and you can talk to me about Owen and I can talk to you about Arizona."

"_Who?_" Cristina replied although she knew exactly who Arizona was. That was one of the reasons she liked Callie – talking to her cheered her up nine times out of ten.

"Shut up." Callie retorted.

"Don't hug me then."

"I'm not hugging you."

"Don't touch me then. That's what happens when you touch me."

"Fine then." Callie withdrew her arm in mock hurt as they crossed the street. "I guess I won't share my mint chocolate chip ice cream with you then."

"Fine then." Cristina shrugged, and just for form added, "Mint is for babies anyway."

* * *

Owen stopped the car outside a house he hadn't been to in a long time. He thought about what he was doing and realised that he wasn't afraid of this moment anymore. He guessed today must be a day for revelations given how many he'd had in the last six or so hours. Although he'd thought himself prepared, he couldn't help but hesitate when he'd walked up the garden path and was about to knock on the front door. He wasn't afraid anymore, but that still didn't stop him being apprehensive. Before he got a chance to knock though, the door opened and for a moment they both stood there just staring at each other.

"Owen. You came," his mother said, breaking the silence.

He felt a bit ashamed then, he should have come to see her a long time ago and he knew it.

"Yeah," he replied after a minute. "I came."

"Well come in then." She held the door open for him then and Owen felt as though a door to a part of his life that had been slammed closed had just cracked open and a sliver of light was now shining through. He almost laughed because it was so cheesy, then he stepped over the threshold. And when the door closed behind him and his mother asked him in her usual mother hen way if he'd eaten yet, Owen couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't come back sooner.

* * *

It was late when Cristina and Callie heard a knock on the door. They were both plonked in front of the television watching a lame movie that made no sense because neither of them could be bothered to change the channel and between them was the tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream - Cristina had had to very reluctantly admit that she actually rather like mint. Because she was the closest, Callie got up to answer the door. After letting Owen in, she started to make over exaggerated yawning noises and muttered something about going to bed, grabbing the ice cream on the way to her room. Amused, Owen said, "Well I guess we're alone then."

Cristina looked around the apartment. When she saw no one else present she replied, "Looks like it." She was glad he was there, of course she was, but she couldn't help but be a little nervous, a little edgy. "Look, about your mother," she blurted out before she could talk herself out it. "I know she came to the hospital and everything but it wasn't me. Ok? It wasn't me who called her." She searched his face for any signs she could get about what he was thinking. After a moment, he sat down on the arm of the couch next to her.

"I know," he replied simply.

"_You...you do?" _she replied surprised. "How?"

"I went to see my mother today, after my shift had finished."

Suddenly it all clicked into place for Cristina. No wonder she hadn't been able to find him.

"How'd that go?"

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," Owen smiled. "We talked, and it was......nice. Really really nice."

At that moment, Cristina felt absurdly proud of him for having the strength to confront that demon. She didn't realise she'd said this out loud until Owen grinned and said that he was proud of her too.

"What for?" Cristina almost laughed at the idea that _he _was proud of _her_.

"For everything," Owen took her hand in his. "For taking all of the crap I put you through and not running away screaming once."

"Believe me," Cristina half joked, "I came close a couple of times."

"I love you. You know that don't you?" Owen said, his eyes searching hers for her reaction.

For a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe. They hadn't said that to each other before and she'd been beginning to wonder if they ever would.

"I love you too," she replied through her constricted throat, and because she was so happy she started laughing until she found she couldn't stop. It was a while until she calmed down enough to ask the question that had been bugging her since Owen had said he knew it hadn't been her who told his mother he was back.

"So who did tell your mother you were back then now that we've established that it wasn't me?"

The smile on Owen's face faded slightly. "Beth. Apparently she ran into her a few days ago and said she'd seen me."

"Oh." Cristina didn't know what else to say.

"I'm glad she did though," Owen admitted.

"You are?" Cristina couldn't help but think that if it really had been her who did it, they probably still wouldn't be talking. That wasn't fair on Owen though, she knew deep down that he would have reacted no different to Beth if she'd been around.

"Yeah," Owen had caught the flicker of annoyance that flashed across Cristina's face and told her he was sorry for how he'd treated her. He guessed she needed to hear that even though he'd thought it was sort of obvious.

"So," Cristina changed the subject, "Are you going to see her again."

"Who Beth?" Owen laughed when she frowned. "Yes, I'm going to see her again next week." As casually as he could he added, "I thought that maybe you would want to come too."

"I may be busy next week," Cristina hedged. Memories of Burke's mother were rising up uncomfortably in her mind and she wasn't sure she wanted to back there again. Even for Owen.

"She wants to meet you, you know."

"She said that?" It was Cristina's experience that mothers didn't like potential daughters in law. Full stop.

"Yeah," Owen tried to put on his most charming face. "Please? For me."

"If she hates me I'll leave and I won't care if you want to stay."

Owen laughed. "Why do you think she's going to hate you?"

"Just because," Cristina muttered darkly, prompting Owen to laugh even harder. The idea that someone might not like Cristina seemed preposterous. He had to admit he was a little bit biased though. For the first time since he'd entered the apartment, Owen noticed the TV was on.

"What _are_ you watching?" He asked when what looked like a really fake zombie moved onto the screen.

Cristina looked from him to the screen and then back. "Nothing, it's just a bad horror movie."

"Well then, I guess you won't mind if I turn it off then."

"Why'd you do that?" she asked suspiciously when he turned it off and stood up. Without answering, he reached down and picked her up off the sofa and into his arms. Picked. Her. Up. Indignantly she began to protest. "Put me down. Do you think I wanted you to pick me up? Because I didn't."

"So?" Owen said in the same way he used to and began carrying her towards her bedroom. She was about to protest some more but then she decided she actually secretly rather liked him carrying her- liked being in his arms again - so she didn't bother. She was glad to notice that he didn't hesitate when he entered her room as she'd thought he'd might. But he didn't even blink as he dumped her on the bed and sat down beside her.

"What brought this on?" she asked. Not that she was complaining.

"You look really tired," he replied, "And in case you hadn't noticed" he nodded towards her clock which showed just after 12, "It's getting late." As soon as he mentioned that she looked tired she began to feel tired and before she knew it she was yawning. "See," he lay down beside her and pulled her into his arms again. "I told you you were tired." Seeing as she was still yawning Cristina couldn't really argue with that so instead she laid her head against his shoulder.

"I've still got that jacket of yours, you know," she mumbled as she began to drift off.

"Really?" Owen acted surprised. He wasn't about to tell her he knew that she slept with it - or at least she had been before.

"Yeah," she pulled it out from under the pillow from the side of the bed she didn't sleep on. "See."

Owen took it out of her hands and before she could stop him, threw it off the bed and onto the floor saying, "You won't need that seeing as I'm here in person tonight."

Once again she couldn't argue with that logic so instead she told him to shut up and let her go to sleep - she really was tired.

He laughed, "My wish is your command."

"Better be," she mumbled into his shoulder.

Owen smiled into the dark.

A minute later Cristina said quietly, "Hey Owen?"

"Yeah?" he whispered back although he didn't know why they were talking like that.

"I just realised something."

For a moment Owen didn't know what to say. He froze remembering the last time she'd realised something while lying in his arms. _Don't say that again_ he thought desperately, _say anything but that._

"I'm not afraid anymore," she continued drowsily, apparently not noticing that he'd practically become a living statue next to her. "In your arms I mean, I'm not afraid to fall asleep." As if to prove that very point she fell asleep a minute later. Owen breathed a sigh of relief. Lying on his back, Owen found himself staring up at the fan on Cristina's ceiling. It was almost as if the last few months hadn't happened and they were back then lying in her bed fully clothed while she slept beside him. Except the last few months had happened and although he wasn't glad that he'd tried to kill Cristina he was glad of everything that had come out of it. And most importantly, he was glad that he was at a stage where they could be together. That they _could_ be. And if there was one thing that he was certain of, it was that they _would _be. Of that he had no doubt.

_With that thought on his mind, it wasn't long until Owen too drifted off......._

**

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So back to my question. Personally I'm leaning towards doing a sequel seeing as the point of the story was to see if Owen could get over his PTSD which he has, so let me know what you think please! Do you agree/disagree? Or not care? Any input would be valuable and appreciated - feel free to review/ pm me with your thoughts :)

And please review :) Especially all you silent readers out there

****ok, so i've added this bit on afterwards. I've decided that if i can find inspiration i'm going to do a sequel rather than just carry on*********


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